


Best Kept Secret

by M1R4CUL0US



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Ladybug has a breakdown, ML Secret Santa, Miraculous Ladybug Secret Santa 2019, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22010308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M1R4CUL0US/pseuds/M1R4CUL0US
Summary: Sandboy returns and with his help, so does a return from the worst akuma (and the worst future) that Ladybug could ever imagine.A secret santa gift I've written for biiiigstoopid on tumblr.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 5
Kudos: 154





	Best Kept Secret

With the events of Chat Blanc still haunting Marinette’s dreams, she couldn’t handle when Sandboy returned. Whether his source was from watching another scary movie late at night or something else keeping him awake and scared, she desperately tried to avoid the sand boy’s dust. 

  
Marinette, now Ladybug, was fairly certain that she knew what the nightmare was going to become and she didn’t dare bring him back. The world she had faced when brought her through time was something that she hadn’t ever imagined before and Ladybug wasn’t sure that she could handle seeing his wide blue eyes.

  
Chat Noir fought alongside her against the starry skinned boy, much sooner to begin the fight than the last time they had to battle him. She was thankful for him being there, when she first encountered Sandboy this time, he was chanting “The Sandboy has come again. The nightmares will never end.” Right above her.

He opened the seal on his pillow and spilled the sand inside towards her, only for her to be knocked out of the way by Chat Noir. She listened and looked for the mean ladybug, but her copycat never came.   
Turning to her partner, she saw him glancing around.

He had confusion on his face, like he didn’t know what he was looking for. The Sandboy laughed as he flew off, spilling his nightmare sand on others as cries and screams began to fill the streets below. Ladybug approached him and set a hand on his shoulder.

  
“Chat Noir, you protected me from getting hit by the sand. You got hit instead, I know you did. What was your nightmare?” Ladybug asked gently.

  
“It’s all my fault, Chat Noir” came a sob from the rooftops across from them. “Its all my fault she got akumatized. If I had just given her the bee miraculous again, she wouldn’t have sided with Hawkmoth.” Came from a tearful Ladybug, exactly like the other except for the streaks of tears down her cheeks.

  
Chat Noir didn’t respond, only looking between the two identical girls and grabbing onto Ladybug's wrist for support. 

  
“Chat, she isn’t real. It’s just a nightmare from Sandboy.” Ladybug spoke softly to him, trying to comfort him so he can get back to his joking, happy self. He glanced up to her sadly.

  
“But she is real Ladybug. She’s you. You were so heartbroken and you kept blaming yourself for everything around you.” He looked away, back to the girl weeping on the other roof. “No matter what I said, I felt like I wasn’t getting through to you. You just kept blaming yourself. ‘If I did this -' ‘I should have -' ‘It’s my fault -' You wouldn’t stop.” 

  
“I never imagined I would ever see you look so broken. It’s been haunting me ever since.” He put his hands on both of her shoulders. “Promise me that you wont blame yourself for something like that ever again, my lady. You didn’t know that Chloe would become obsessed with being a miraculous holder and you can’t blame it on yourself if it happens again.” 

  
“The Guardian is gone, Chat. How am I supposed to fill his shoes when I cant even be a good ladybug? I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve to be the hero of Paris.” The other ladybug cried out from across the street, her words hitting home in the young heroine’s heart, but instead of focusing on those words, she smiled and looked at chat as earnestly as she could.

  
“I’m so happy that you care this much about my well being, but we’ve got bigger issues to deal with right now. Come on kitty, let’s save this little boy and then we can talk.” The smile she gave was small, but warm enough to make him smile back. The fire in his gut reignited and the two ran along the rooftops towards the floating blue and golden speck that was causing this torment.

  
They caught up to him, easily following his chanting of “The Sandboy has come again. The nightmares will never end.” But were surprised with a sudden onslaught of snowball-sized projectiles of the nightmare dust. Ladybug flipped out of the way just in time as Chat Noir spun his baton to burst the projectiles and blow the dust away from him. 

  
“Sorry sandboy, but one sleepy time straggler is enough for tonight, thank you.” Was Chat's snarky jab to the Akuma, while pointing to the Ladybug who pursued him who still cried of her failures during that battle. Chat wanted nothing more but to comfort her and make sure that his lady knew that she would never be blamed in his eyes or the eyes of the people for what happened with Mayura, Hawkmoth and Miracle Queen. The only thing that prevented him from doing so was the knowledge that the real Ladybug was by his side.

  
“The Sandboy has come again and your nightmare will last forever, you rotten cat! And your miraculous will be mine!” The sandboy continued to launch his nightmare powder, both heroes having trouble keeping clear, and before Ladybug could do anything else - like summoning her lucky charm - she was hit by one of those snowball nightmare-dust projectiles as well. It had hit her in her ankle. Her first thought was that if she had just been a bit quicker in her reactions or bent her knee more then he wouldn’t be here.

  
The first notion of his existence in this timeline was the pair of snow white ears climbing over the peak of a roof. She now stood in a square of sorts, Chat Noir by her side, his ladybug nightmare – still blaming herself to him - behind him, with Sandboy in front of Chat Noir for the most part, all that was left in front of her was not just her worst nightmare but a very easily possible future that she had just barely avoided last time. 

  
“Little kitty on a roof. All alone without his lady~” came the eerie song that always began her dreams. Chat Noir’s ears perked at the song, remembering the evening she called him. The fear he heard that day was worrying.

  
He extended his baton, knocking sandboy off of the pillow as he saw something crawling across the roof on all fours, a white leather tail dragging behind it. It took a moment for Chat Noir to understand what he was seeing.

  
“I was feline so sad that you left me all alone in the cold, milady~” his own voice cooed to Ladybug from the white creature. Chat Noir didn’t feel that it was safe to look away from the snow colored copycat, but he had to focus on Sandboy. He was focusing more on Sandboy than even his partner was and with a glance to her, he understood why. 

  
She was collapsed on her butt, legs visibly shaking as she looked at his phony. Chat Noir noticed the bright solid blue eyes, white irises and thick black lines around his eyes as they locked on to the lamenting voice of his nightmare Ladybug from behind. 

  
“Ladybug~” Ladybug’s nightmare Chat called out, looking to the false hero. It was as if they couldn’t tell that each other was only a nightmare. 

  
“Chat Noir, it’s all my fault.” She spoke loudly as tears kept falling down her face.

  
“No, my lady. It was never your fault~” Chat Blanc stood as he approached the nightmare ladybug, still smiling. In Adrien’s dreams, she always ran away when he tried to get close. And that was just what she did now as Chat Blanc closed in on her. Chat Noir folded down onto his hands and knees and took off after the fake Ladybug, echoing one last cry that Chat could hear as he bound over roof to roof.

  
“Just give me your miraculous and I will fix everything, my princess!”

  
Princess? What was that white him talking about? As Chat Noir approached Ladybug, she quickly snapped to her senses and tried to stand up – yet her legs continued in their shaking as she was reliving the entire trauma of that incident over again. 

  
“Are you okay, milady? Who was that im-paw-ster?” Chat Noir asked as he looked for Sandboy, momentarily losing the akuma in all of the chaos that occurred in the last minute. 

  
“A bad future. Bad luck. A nightmare, Chat, a horrible awful nightmare.” Ladybug spoke softly, almost weakly and sunk into his arms until the shakes in her legs calming to such an amount that she felt comfortable in continuing the fight. She quickly caught sight of Sandboy trying to climb onto his pillow and continue his attempts to get their miraculouses.

  
Her and Chat noir had him restrained, her yoyo wrapped him tightly to his pillow and immobile as Chat Noir had his cataclysm ready and was swinging his arm when a white beam shot out and pierced through an uncountable amount of buildings in the split second that it was fired. 

  
“N-no.” Ladybug whimpered. “please no.” she tightened her grip on the yoyo, the shaking back in her limbs at the sign of the familiar power. 

  
“Marineeeeette" came Chat's voice again. “Mari. All you need to do is give me your miraculous and I can fix the world back to the way it was for us from before.”

  
“I-I'm not Marinette.” Was all she could say, in honesty, it was the only thing she could think of. Maybe as an excuse, a rationalization of something or just some sort of deterrent to the villain before her.

  
Chat watched in confusion, not sure whether to strike the pillow and defeat the akuma or go be there for his lady. He wanted to do both, he so desperately wanted to go comfort her at that moment as he looked to his bubbling hand. He swings his arm to destroy the pillow, only for it to be destroyed in a small burst of white. 

  
It was like his cataclysm… but white? Why would his suit and powers be white? At least it made it easier to tell who was a dream and who wasn’t between the two felines.

  
“See? I can still help you with akumas, my lady. Just give me your Miraculous and you wont have to deal with this stuff ever again, okay?” the white Chat spoke again, his voice was happy – too much to be normal – and it scared Chat Noir. 

  
Why didn’t Chat Blanc disappear once he destroyed the pillow? The Akuma was gone, the boy was free and all other living nightmares had faded away – so why is he still here? Chat Noir looked at his duplicate, but the white cat only had eyes for Ladybug. Her terror was visible as they met his gaze.

  
It didn’t seem to dawn on Chat Noir how his double didn’t disappear, but Ladybug knew. Her worst nightmare wasn’t simply Chat Blanc – it was for Chat Blanc to discover a way back to her world. She saw for herself that Chat Blanc was alone. 

  
Ladybug had been the one to turn her statue into dust – even if it was an accident – so she knew for sure that Chat Blanc's version of Ladybug was… dead… that was the only way to describe it. She could say that her alternate self was simply disintegrated, but that is only a half-truth.

  
“My Lady, are you okay?” Chat Noir asked, trying to get her attention. Ladybug looked to her feet.

  
“She’s mine.” Chat Blanc snapped his head to face Chat Noir. “I’ve been waiting so long for her… and she came back, only to leave me again.” His fluorescent blue eyes locked onto Noir and filled his veins with ice. “I worked so hard to get her back, only to find a false ladybug. I want my purrincess.” 

  
With those final words, Blanc raised his right arm and a ball of white light appeared in front of his fingers. Noir wanted to ask so many questions, unsure if this was a jealous fan akumatized or what was going on with calling the hero "princess", but focused on his arm instead. It was stilled fused with the cataclysmic energy. 

  
“I'm not Marinette.” came a whimpered response from Ladybug, having tripped while walking backwards and had curled up along a widow’s wall alongside the rooftop. Hearing and seeing his lady act like this reminded him of his own nightmare, but instead of the hurt that came with it before, he was filled with rage. Whatever happened with this akuma had probably been the cause for her self-deprecation from before. That was the only reasonable explanation! 

  
“You heard my lady!” Chat Noir shouted. “She’s not Marinette! She’s not your princess, so go!” He planted his feet, ready to lunge – or jump, if needed – as the ball of white light was still pointed at him. With equally quick reflexes, the ball of light was shot by and dodged by the two felines and they fought. 

  
Chat Noir avoided the use of his cataclysm hand, looking for the right opportunity, the right part of his copycat where the akuma may be, to use. He only had three minutes left and one chance. His opponent seemed to have no limit to his power, flinging discs of the same light and shooting the same kind as before by flicking them. They didn’t have much damage from the small size, but they were effective and made Chat Noir worry about if they hit him.

  
With each shot fired from Chat Blanc, he kept shouting about Ladybug and how she was his and belonged with him, how he would take her miraculous and make their wish come true. How they would be happy again.

Chat Noir thought back to Timebreaker. After the battle, when the second Ladybug disappeared, ladybug had told him of the situation and why there was two of her and of the akuma. He was always unsure of who was the original ladybug, but it seemed like his Ladybug knew quite a bit of the other time, before Timebreaker and Ladybug went back and into his time.

  
So maybe… that had happened again. What had she seen? Was this enemy actually him? That would make Ladybug’s prior words make sense… a bad future… bad luck… 

  
“We were happy, Marinette.” Blanc spoke as he swiped at Noir, the warm tone to his voice was too calm and kind to be normal. Even as Ladybug refuted him calling her by her civilian name, he didn’t flinch and continued his calm words as his swings and slashes didn’t slow or cease. “I can make us happy again.”

  
“You don’t even know the truth, do you? A-dri-en?” Chat Blanc dragged out his name with a snicker. “How our own father was Hawkmoth and how he killed my Princess?” 

  
Those words were enough to bring a stutter to the black cat’s steps. His father as Hawkmoth he could believe, with Mayura on Hawkmoth's side he could believe that Hawkmoth would akumatize himself, but kill? Chat Noir had never even imagined the mortality of him or his enemies during akuma fights, never thinking that the battles ever got so close to that possibility. 

  
But… Chat Noir called Marinette his princess. What did his father do? Why would he- How could he even rationalize hurting someone enough to risk getting them killed? Even the very thought of his father being capable of something that awful made him want to destroy all things related to the older male, including an akuma – should he actually be Hawkmoth.

  
The anger in his heart made him move without thought. It was pure rage that powered his quick steps, claws extended and with an unceasing scream he dodged every bolt of light and attempt at claw like he was moving faster than anything in existence. 

  
He didn’t think, his arm simply fell. Barely missing the spot on top of Blanc's chest, where the beat of his cruel heart came from. Instead, his fingers that pulsed with destruction had decimated the bell that hung from the zipper of his suit. A small black butterfly flew free and Chat Blanc collapsed to his knees as he returned to Chat Noir. 

  
“Another Chat Noir? What happened to everything? Where’s Marinette?” the kneeling Chat Noir asked. The mirth at her name and confusion in his voice was real and warm – making the still enraged Chat Noir above him feel almost guilty for still wanting to punch him. 

  
The Noir below him noticed the blue hair sticking out from behind the roof and shouted out to the heroine who cried out again the same phrase that seemed to be the only thing she could say, “I’m not Marinette.” This time she actually started to cry.

  
“Please, leave already! I can’t do this again! I’m not your princess, I’m not Marinette! I just wanted to save the day.” She covered her ears with her hands and clenched her eyes shut. “I did the best I could, why did you have to come back? I thought I fixed everything, Chat!” 

  
Both of the Chat Noirs looked at each other, the former akuma was looking very hurt for some reason unknown to the other. Ladybug was tense for what felt like ten minutes, still huddled in on herself until she relaxed her limbs at the lack of fighting noises and sadly opened her eyes to see them softly whispering. Both of the boys in question were side by side, quietly looking at her, and they were identical.

No more blue eyes. She looked at them and burrowed into each of the emerald pairs, trying to find a hint of who could have been the Chat Blanc of them. No luck, but both sets of eyes held concern for her. She felt her cheeks redden about how she reacted because of an akuma’s power.

  
“Oh, um. Chat Noir….s. I need to catch the akumas. A-and set everything right .” One of the Chat Noirs stood and started to walk to her, stopping halfway at the slight step back she took upon his approach.

  
“Chat Noir filled me in on the whole me-being-an-evil-white-chat-blanc creature and I wanted to apologize to you for that. Its obvious that you aren’t my Ladybug. She must be waiting for me at my timeline. I want to help you catch the Akumas so I can go back to her.” He was clearly hurt at seeing his partner and the woman he loved act scared of him, but he tried to rationalize it as ‘this isn’t my lady' but it was hard to do with her standing right in front of you.

  
With Ladybug back on her feet, she was able to approach the little boy stuck on a nearby fire escape who had just been freed from his akuma.

  
“Are you okay miss Ladybug?” He asked – having seen the whole thing, he knew that she was very scared when the white Chat Noir showed up. He was scared too, but he knew that the two heroes would save the day. And they did! But Ladybug looked so scared by the window part of the roof, almost as scared as he was when he watched that horror movie earlier.

  
“I’m okay now that I know you’re safe.” She chuckled lightly, “Now what happened to make you so upset that you got akumatized?” 

  
So he told her of the scary movie he saw. It was way scarier than the first one! He watched the first one again after the last time he was akumatized and realized that it wasn’t as scary as he first thought. So he decided that he would watch a way meaner and scarier movie and get over all of his fears at once and never be scared again, but it didn’t work and he was too afraid to get off the couch and next thing he knew, he was here.

  
“You wouldn’t get scared any more? There will always be a little fear in life. And though it doesn’t seem like it, we need a little fear to keep us safe.” Ladybug reasoned to him as she lowered them down from her yoyo.

  
“But fear is bad! It means I’m a scaredy cat!” the little boy shouted, looking at the young heroine with wide eyes. 

  
“No. Being a scaredy cat makes you a scaredy cat!” Ladybug responded before leaning close to whisper in the boy’s ear, “Chat Noir would know!” She joked, making the little boy laugh.

  
“Fear makes people cautious. Being cautious of the big and fast things in the road is what keeps people safe when crossing the street. Being cautious about getting hurt is what protects people from approaching strange things and wild animals. It is good in moderation, but you shouldn’t scare yourself silly to try to get it all out at once! You need a little bit of fear with you each day to keep you cautious and help keep you safe, okay?” the boy only nodded and started walking to his mother. 

  
“Miss Ladybug, why arent the damages fixed yet, and who was that white chat noir on the roof and why are there two chat Noirs on the roof now?” called a reporter, Nadja Chamack herself to be precise, as Ladybug was about to swing to the top of the building.

  
“Chat Noir and I are fixing everything now, don’t worry. Bug out!” Ladybug had joined the two Chat Noirs above and they were about to set out to find the akumas until her Chat Noir’s ring flashed for its last minute. With an apologetic look, he dropped into an alley and found a spot to de-transform. With Ladybug alone with the former Chat Blanc, sue felt free to ask the questions that came to her during the past few minutes.

  
“Chat? Can I ask you a few questions?” She asked as she sat down on the roof, Chat Noir joined her.  
“Sure. What’s on your mind?” Not going to lie, he was nervous. This Chat Noir had told him about everything that he had done and said. He had destroyed so much...

  
“In your home, do you know who I am?” Ladybug looked him in the eyes and held his gaze. He looked into her bright blue eyes and simply stared into them for a few moments. Should he be honest? Would it affect her relationship with this Chat Noir? It wasn’t like he could just tell her “no", not only did he find it hard to lie to his princess, but she could also spot a liar from a mile away.

  
“You made it a little too easy for me bugaboo.” He softly smiled as he reminisced, “you left that beret for me in my bedroom with your civilian name, but I saw you drop it off as ladybug. I connected the dots and so many things made so much sense that I couldn’t just leave it.”

  
She felt the corner of her lips crooking up despite her trying to be stern. So her finally being brave is what caused this Chat Blanc situation to happen? 

  
“It was all going well, we were so happy.” Chat Noir continued, “but my father disapproved and decided that he wanted to rear his rotten head into our relationship. When I return, I’m going to fix some things.” 

  
Ladybug was shocked at the hatred in her partner’s voice, but she knew that there must have been a good reason for his anger. Having met his father herself, she could understand how he could come to feel so strongly about something like this. Her Chat Noir had leapt up to the roof as she was thinking of a way to respond.

  
“I checked the Ladyblog as I was waiting for Plagg. There are people saying that one of the akumas were seen at the tip of the Eiffel Tower. The other was seen flying near the Bourgeois Hotel but they lost track of it around that area.” 

  
With a nod to both of her partners, they flew across the roofs as they quickly arrived to the Eiffel tower. She was about to flip her yoyo open to catch and purify the butterfly until it vibrated – signaling a message to her from another miraculous holder.

With surprise she read the message that Bunnix had sent her simply saying “Don’t worry about the second akuma. Catch the akuma on the Eiffel Tower and use your miraculous cure. Your future will be okay.”

  
“Is everything okay My Lady?” Both of the blondes had asked her in sync.

  
“Um. Yeah, everything’s fine. Bunnix just sent me a message telling us to only worry about the akuma on the Eiffel Tower.” Ladybug re-read the message to be sure that its contents were correct, but it didn’t change. “Yeah. She said to only worry about the Eiffel Tower akuma.”

  
“Maybe because the other akuma will return with me to my time,” The Chat Noir on the left and smiled.  
“She’s the time Miraculous holder after all. I trust her, Ladybug.” And with a call from Ladybug, a replica of her yoyo fell into her hands. She looked around, the only things to be highlighted in her vision was the yoyo in her hands and the Chat Noir from the other world.

  
It was so simple it was almost humorous, like usual after a battle she caught the akuma in the yoyo and purified it. She released it with a smile and a whisper of her usual words – yet anyone can agree that anything about this situation wasn’t usual. And yet, with a release of the butterfly and a launch of her lucky charm, everything had once again become right with Paris. Like usual.

  
Though now she knew a very personal secret of her partner, she would ensure it is kept strong and that he will never have to face the horrors that he did. Beside her stood Chat Noir, with similar thoughts of her well-being that he kept to himself. The ladybugs and magic fixed all the broken things and returned anything out of place to where it was and the heroes watched in peace. Each of them thinking of how they will be the silent and unknown hero of Paris' most important protector.

  
And as the two teens stood in peace, their enemy stood in shadows and examined a darkened butterfly that wasn’t of his creation. 


End file.
